Nancy Drew: The Deadly Plot Device
by Professor Snaglefoompus
Summary: Nancy goes to Colorado, to solve the murder of Niko Jovic. A humorous version of "The Deadly Device".
1. A Letter to Carson

_Dear Dad,_

_Is it kind of weird that I'm always writing letters to you, even though we live in the same house? I think that's kind of weird._

_Anyway, the wealthy owner of a research facility in Colorado has asked me to investigate a cold murder case. It seems that Niko Jovic, a brilliant researcher, was killed while on the verge of announcing a groundbreaking scientific theory._

_The murder weapon? A Tesla coil that Niko was working with. I don't know who this Tesla guy is, but he's at the top of my suspect list now._

_I'm calling this case "The Deadly Plot Device". See you soon._

_Nancy._


	2. Arriving in Colorado

It was snowy in Colorado, when Nancy arrived at Lossett Labs. She picked up her cell phone and called Victor Lossett, her current employer.

"Nancy," Victor said. "You arrived safely?"

"Sure did," Nancy said. "So what's the plan here?"

"The police report is inside Niko's desk drawer," Victor said. "The combination is 171943. Read that, before doing anything else."

"Got it," Nancy said. "What's my cover?"

"You're working for a new investor, who's thinking about buying the lab," Victor said. "I'll back you up, in case anyone asks."

"Sounds good to me," Nancy said.

"Do whatever you want, _except_ go in the lab," Victor said. "It's too dangerous for you to go poking around inside."

"But...that's where the murder took place!" Nancy said. "How am I supposed to solve a murder mystery if I'm not allowed to see the scene of the crime?"

"Fine, I'll ask Ellie to set up a demo for you," Victor said. "But that's _it_. I don't want any more people dying in the laboratory. Besides, the police already investigated that area thoroughly."

"Did they find anything?" Nancy asked.

"They found evidence which pointed towards Ryan's guilt," Victor said. "She built the part that killed Niko, and supposedly, she threatened him. I suggest you start with her."

"Understood," Nancy said.

"Call me if you need anything," Victor said. He hung up the phone, but Nancy immediately called him back.

"Nancy?" Victor asked, sounding surprised. "Is there a problem?"

"I need fifty bucks," Nancy said. "Can you give it to me?"

"NO!" Victor shouted. He hung up again.

"Shoot," Nancy said.


	3. The Case File

Nancy started her case by going straight to Niko's personal office. The office was dominated by a large bookcase and a large portrait of Nikola Tesla.

Nancy instantly recognized Nikola Tesla, thanks to some research she did on Tesla coils during her flight to Colorado. If she remembered correctly, the Tesla Coil was named after its inventor, Dr. Steven Coil. Nikola Tesla, on the other hand, was named after his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Tesla.

Nancy went to Niko's desk and typed in the combination 171943. The drawer opened, revealing the police case file. A post-it note from Victor reminded Nancy to _not_ take the case file out of the room.

Nancy read the file, which had profiles of all the various people involved with this case.

_Niko Jovic: The victim. Five Time Winner of the Ugly Christmas Sweater Competition.  
__Ryan Kilpatrick: The main suspect. A wacky mechanic who wears goggles for no apparent reason. Works on the day shift.  
__Gray Cortright: The security guard. A grumpy old guy with a beard.  
__Victor Lossett: Owner of the labs. Also a grumpy old guy with a beard.  
__Mason Quinto: Works the day shift. A grumpy young guy with no beard. Doesn't seem to fit in with the other men.  
__Ellie York: Works on the night shift. First to discover the body._

Nancy left the office and explored the downstairs area. At the moment, it was daytime, which meant that the security booth was locked. Security was right next to the doors to the lab, which were protected by a keycard reader.

The only other interesting things downstairs were a security alarm, the doorway to the lounge, and Nancy's newest nemesis: The Slow Elevator of Slowness. It was creaky, it was old, and Nancy didn't like using it one bit.

Nancy rode the elevator upstairs. She couldn't help but picture the elevator's machinery breaking down, causing her to plummet to her death. _You'd think a high-tech lab would be able to afford an elevator made in this century..._ Nancy thought.

Upstairs, there were two main areas: the work offices, and the tech laboratory. Outside the tech area was a poster which said _Fifteen Things About Electricity Which You Don't Care About._ Next to each number was a binary code, represented by blue and red dots. Nancy quickly dismissed this as unimportant information which would never become relevant to the case.


	4. Mason

Nancy walked into the office area. At first, she thought walking was a boring way to make an entrance. So she decided to _moonwalk_ into the office areas. She tripped and fell three times, before deciding to walk like a normal person the rest of the way.

The office area was rather empty. There were two cubicles—one for Mason, and one for Ellie. In the back of the room was a small break area with a book on electricity sitting on a coffee table. Nancy decided to pocket it (the book, not the table).

It was daytime, so only Mason was working at the moment. Nancy walked into his cubicle to talk.

"If it looks like I'm busy, that _means_ I'm busy!" Mason said in an irritated voice.

"What are you working on?" Nancy asked.

"It's _immensely_ complicated," Mason said, rolling his eyes. "Get a post grad in electrical engineering, then you might _begin_ to understand it."

Nancy bit her lip. "Your computer monitor is off," she noted. "How can you work without your computer on?"

Mason's right eye wrinkled. "A better question is, 'Why are you here, stranger?'," he shot back at her.

"I'm here doing due dilli—dooli—duligence for a new investor," Nancy said. "I think Victor wants to sell the lab and work at someplace with less death, like McDonalds."

"Wrong!" Mason said.

"There's a lot of death at McDonalds?" Nancy asked, confused.

"No, I mean wrong answer for me," Mason said. "I was hoping I could kick you out of my workspace. But if you're here for a new investor, that means I have to answer all your questions."

"Cool," Nancy said. "So how do you like working here? Do you like the other employees? Did you and Niko—"

"Let me cut you off there," Mason said, cutting Nancy off there. "I don't like _anyone_."

"You...you don't?" Nancy asked.

"Nope! Check this out."

Mason slowly and dramatically gave a big thumbs down. He nodded enthusiastically at this. "Other people," he said.

"You give other people a thumbs down?" Nancy asked. "No! NOOOOOO! You _monster!_"

"Woah, calm down," Mason said, holding up his hands. "I'm just being honest here."

"But you can't dislike _everyone!_" Nancy said.

"Yes, I can," Mason said. "I have good reasons to dislike _all_ my co-workers. Victor's overbearing, Ryan is a spaz, Ellie is a phony, Gray thinks he gets to control my life, and Niko was a thief."

"Niko was a thief?" Nancy asked.

"Yes!" Mason said. "He was constantly stealing my work and taking credit for it. I'm _glad_ he's no longer working here."

"Okay, so you don't like other people," Nancy said. "What about Ryan, in particular? What makes you dislike her?"

"I don't trust her," Mason said. "Not because she's been accused of killing Niko. I don't trust her, because I don't trust _anyone_ I can't explain. Which, come to think of it, includes every woman I've ever met."

"What about your mother?" Nancy asked.

"_Especially_ my mother," Mason said. "Ryan's thought processes are all over the place. I think logically, from A to B to C, and so on. Ryan? She thinks from A to Zucchini, to that Thing on TV Last Night, to maybe C, to Gummy Bears."

"Do _you_ think she killed Niko?" Nancy asked.

"Maybe," Mason said. "But just because she's crazy, it doesn't mean she's a killer."


	5. Ryan

Nancy soon decided there wasn't much to the office area, outside of Ellie and Mason's cubicles. There was a water cooler, some chairs and a book on Tesla coils, but that was about it. Nancy pocketed the book and left for the workshop.

Ryan Kilpatrick, the main suspect, worked in this area. When Nancy came in, Ryan was at a worktable, struggling with what looked like a wrench. Nancy couldn't see it clearly, because Ryan's body was in the way. Ryan gave a grunt and a huge push.

Suddenly, a bolt went flying across the room and nearly smacked Nancy in the head. Nancy gave a small shriek of surprise.

"Oh my gosh, I am _so sorry_ about that," Ryan said. "I did _not_ mean to almost kill you right there. Are we cool?"

"Cool?" Nancy asked, slightly taken aback. Usually, when someone almost killed her, they didn't apologize.

"I mean it's reasonable to freak out over a near-death experience, but that was a total accident," Ryan said. "You're lucky you didn't enter the room one second earlier, or you'd by lying on the floor unconscious."

"Uh..."

"In fact, I have a PowerPoint Presentation prepared, just for a situation like this," Ryan said. "You want me to hit all the bullet points?"

Nancy paused. Ryan seemed overly prepared for this situation. "_How_ often have you almost killed someone?" Nancy asked.

"Well...if you don't include that time in Puerto Rico...six," Ryan said.

Nancy could see why Ryan was the police's main suspect for Niko's death. "I'm...I'm fine," Nancy reassured her. "My name's Nancy Drew. I'm here doing research for a new investor."

"I'm Ryan," Ryan said. "I build things, like circuit boards and motorcycle engines and deadly devices. If you've got any questions about machines, I'm your girl!"

"Sounds good to me," Nancy said. "Nice meeting you, Ryan."

Ryan and Nancy shook hands, and Ryan got back to whatever it was she was doing. Nancy looked around a bit at the workshop area. Tools were scattered around haphazardly, but other than that, it was mostly clean.

Inside one of the cabinets, Nancy found a blank key card, along with a sheet of colored paper. Nancy took both of them, as she thought they would be important for getting into the locked lab.


	6. A Power Outage

Nancy was kind of bored. It had only been five minutes, and she got all the way through her investigation for the day. She decided to back to her bedroom, so she could jump on her computer and send an angry email about how short the game was.

As soon as Nancy stepped into the lounge area, the lights flickered and turned off. Before you could say "conveniently timed phone call", Nancy's phone rang.

"Hello, Nancy," said Victor's voice. "I forgot to mention. We've been having a lot of power outages recently."

"What?" Nancy asked. "Isn't this a super high-tech facility that deals in creating new forms of energy?"

"Yes," Victor said.

"And you can't afford to pay the electric bills?" Nancy asked.

"It's a complicated situation," Victor said. "The machines here are very delicate, with precise settings. If something goes wrong, the entire system tends to get...unruly."

Nancy sincerely hoped that did not mean the machines would explode and kill her.

"And _how_ often does the power supply get disrupted?" Nancy asked.

"Not often," Victor said. "Gray does a good job, keeping the machines at the proper levels. So don't worry about it. I'm sure this is just a one-time thing."

Nancy wondered if the power outage was a plot device, while Victor hung up on her. She shrugged, then headed through the lounge to the bedroom. Walking through a room in the dark proved to be a bit more difficult than our favorite detective could handle, however.

"Ow!" Nancy said, stubbing her toe against a chair.

"Ouch!" Nancy said, as she smashed into a cabinet.

"AAAAUGH!" Nancy shouted, as she tripped on a skateboard, smashed into a television and broke a priceless painting by Michelangelo.

Eventually, Nancy stumbled her way into the bedroom area, covered in bruises. She collapsed onto the bed, then grabbed the alarm clock. Even though there was a power outage, the alarm clock was still functioning perfectly. The touchscreen had two settings: night and day. Nancy tapped "night", then got into her bed and fell asleep.


	7. Fixing the Grid

Many hours later, the emergency alarm sounded and woke Nancy up. She threw her hands in the air and shouted "Overweight popsicles!" before falling out of bed.

Rubbing her forehead, Nancy stood up. She stumbled out into the lounge, which looked relatively normal. When she opened the door leading to the main part of the building, she saw a large man with glasses and a beard.

"You!" the man said, pointing at Nancy. "Come with me!"

He turned around, and Nancy got a good look of his plaid coat. "Wait, what?" Nancy asked. "What's going on?"

"No chit chat!" he said. "Come! Now!"

The man led Nancy to the laboratory, and he shoved her towards a machine on the right wall. The machine had lights, cables and sixteen switches. It looked very scientific and complicated; Nancy had no idea what it did.

"We need to get the system shut off, before the grid goes critical," the man said. "Get all those switches shut off. I'll do the rest."

"Um...how do I do that?" Nancy asked.

"Just flip the switches," the man said. "You want to shut them all off."

Nancy scratched her head, confused. "Do you _usually_ force complete strangers to solve your electrical problems?" she asked. "I mean, I'm just a random high schooler. Maybe you should ask one of the electrical engineers who work here."

"There's no time for that!" the man said. "We can't let the grid go critical!"

Nancy sighed. While the man did...whatever, she went to the machine. She quickly found the source of the problem. Two of the switches were being held in place by plastic ties.

"A deadly plot device!" Nancy said. "Whoever tied down these switches wanted to destroy this facility!"

Nancy played around with the switches. Flipping a switch would affect the switches next to it, and each switch had three different power settings. The entire switchboard had a reset button, which was less helpful than you'd imagine, seeing as it didn't set the switches to the default "off" position. Eventually, Nancy gave up on trying to solve the switches puzzle, and she simply unplugged the entire machine.

"Nice work," the fat man said, sounding impressed. He frowned at Nancy and gestured towards the door. "Now get out."

"Hey, I deserve an explanation," Nancy said. "Who are you? What just happened?"

"If the grid had gone critical, we'd all be _dead_ right now!" the man said intensely. "I'm Gray. I don't care who you are. Don't tell me. Get out!"


	8. Nancy Gets Electrocuted

Nancy scratched her head. According to the case file, both Ellie and Gray worked during the night. Since Gray seemed like a meanie, Nancy decided to visit Ellie. That meant another ride on the Slow Elevator of Slowness, to the workspace area.

Ellie York worked in the cubicle opposite of Mason's. She seemed a bit tired, but otherwise she was pleasant.

"Hello, Nancy," Ellie said. "Victor said you're here for a new investor. Ready for the tour of the lab?"

Nancy smiled as Ellie lead her to the downstairs lab. This was the area where Niko died! Nancy was certain to find clues here! Nancy started to do her "the mystery is almost solved" dance.

The next thing Nancy knew, she was locked inside a cage. She could see no way to open it from the inside.

"This is called a Faraday cage," Ellie said from the control room. "It conducts electricity away from the Tesla coil."

"Um...is this the coil Niko was working on when he died?" Nancy asked, turning pale. She didn't like the idea of being near a machine which killed a man.

"Yes," Ellie said. "Now get ready! I'm going to turn on the electricity!"

"I _really_ don't think that's a good idea..." Nancy moaned. Suddenly, brilliant bursts of electricity flew throughout the room. Nancy was almost blinded by the bright lights, and she immediately went into the fetal position, crying like a maniac.

"I'm going to die! I'm going to die, just like Niko! This is the worst tour ever!"

Eventually, Ellie turned off the electricity and lead Nancy away from the deadly device. On the way back upstairs, Nancy made a mental note to update her profile on Ellie.

_Ellie York: Tries to electrocute people, shortly after meeting them. #1 suspect._

Nancy was still a bit shaken from her third near-death experience of the day, but she was a brave girl, so she didn't let herself get discouraged. She knew she would have to get back into the laboratory, so she could explore without anyone watching her. So she asked, "Can you give me a keycard to the lab?"

"No," Ellie said.

Nancy frowned. Somehow, she just _knew_ that getting a keycard would be a long and complicated puzzle.


	9. Aggregation

Nancy had been hoping for a free pass to the laboratory, but for whatever reason, Ellie didn't trust a teenager to be alone at a murder scene. Nancy tried to butter Ellie up with some small talk.

"Did you know Niko very well, before his death?"

"I don't think anyone knew Niko very well," Ellie said. "He liked to keep everything to himself. He was great with machines, but people? He didn't know how to deal with people."

_That seems to be quite common around here,_ Nancy thought to herself. "I see. And what about Mason? Do you like him?"

"Let's just say there's a reason we work on opposite shifts," Ellie said evasively.

"Oh ho!" Nancy said, realizing that Ellie disliked Mason. "Does this mean I can explore in his area?"

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," Ellie said. "Mason doesn't like it when people mess around with his stuff."

"But I'm really curious to see what he's hiding!" Nancy said.

"Hmmm...tell you what," Ellie said. "Mason's been lording his high score at Aggregation over me. Take him down, and I'll let you explore his cubicle all you want."

Nancy readily agreed. She went downstairs—for some reason, she didn't want to explore in Ryan's area, while Ryan was gone—and into the lounge. Near the doors was an arcade game called Aggregation.

Nancy read the rules. You got points for making matches of three. If you made all the matches on a board, you moved on to the next level. The rules reminded her of Candy Crush, one of her favorite games, so she started playing with a smile on her face.

Twenty minutes later, the smile was gone, as Nancy was still struggling to get past Level Two. She made a blue match, and the game gave her a red piece, when she needed a green one. With no useful pieces anywhere, she threw a purple piece on the board. The game gave her a green piece, only now the green piece match was blocked by the purple piece.

"AUGH!" Nancy said. "Aggregation? More like _aggravation! _Why can't I beat this game?"

According to Nancy's head calculator, she had to beat ten levels to get the high score. But since each small match gave her 30 points, she was able to eventually get all the points she needed after an hour.

"Yes!" Nancy said. When the game prompted her to write in her name, she wrote "Mason is a doofus". She grinned as she hit "enter".

_Name is too long,_ the game's screen said. _Automatically shortening it._

The game shortened the name to "Mason", which was put at the top of the high score list.

"NOOOOOO!" Nancy howled with pain.

Another hour of painful gameplay later, Nancy finally got a new high score. This time, she put her own name in. Sighing with relief, Nancy slowly trudged back upstairs to Ellie's area. "I...I got the high score," Nancy said. "On Aggregation. I got it."

"Good job," Ellie said, turning to the side. "This is me, looking the other way."

As Nancy entered Mason's cubicle, she wondered if it would have been easier to lie about beating the game. She shook her head. Lying was for culprits, not for detectives!


	10. Gray

Mason's cubicle was overly neat and boring, just like its owner. Nancy messed up his perfectly-aligned paperclips and browsed through his book on making duplicates of fingerprints.

_Ha, like that information will ever come in_ _handy!_ Nancy thought dismissively.

His computer was password protected, so Nancy was forced to decipher the clues on Mason's whiteboard. Certain letters were underlined, and a game of hangman was at the bottom of the board. Nancy took note of the underlined letters, and found that they spelled out "Tesla's hometown".

Nancy tried typing in "Tesla's Hometown" as the password, but the computer didn't accept it. She frowned.

Nancy didn't know what Tesla's hometown was, but she could easily look up that information on the Internet, and...she sighed, as she realized that the only computer in the area was password protected. She pulled out her cell phone and sent a quick text message to her friend, George Fayne.

George's response seemed excited, and she asked if Nancy could get her a job at Technology of Tomorrow, as long as Nancy was working at one of their labs. More importantly, George said the answer was "Smiljan". Mason's computer accepted that as the password.

Mason's computer didn't have much on it, besides for technology work. In the computer's trash can, Nancy discovered a short text file, which said Ryan should never have been released from jail. A video number was attached to the file, but the video itself was not.

Nancy's task list let her check off "snoop in Mason's area", so she knew that she found everything she could in his cubicle. She took the Slow Elevator of Slowness downstairs, then took a moment to plan her next move. She decided that the video was probably footage from a security camera, which meant she had to go to the security office.

Gray Cortright was working at a set of three computer monitors. He turned to look at Nancy as she entered. "Don't know you," he said. "Who let you in?"

"Um...we met earlier," Nancy said. "You forced me to fix the grid before it went critical."

"The only grid I care about is the one on my waffle iron," Gray said. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to inspect the lab," Nancy said. "My boss is interested in buying it."

"A new owner. Just what this place needs." Gray rolled his eyes.

"I'd like to ask a few questions, if that's okay," Nancy said. "Specifically, I want to learn more about your co-workers. What do you think of Ellie?"

"Hate her," Gray said.

"What about Ryan?"

"Hate her," Gray said.

"And Mason?"

"Hate him," Gray said.

"Do you like anyone?" Nancy asked.

"I _liked_ Niko," Gray said. "But he's dead now. I got no one left to be friendly with. Which includes _you_, Missy."

Gray shot Nancy a nasty look, then turned back to his computers. Somehow, she got the feeling that Gray would not be very cooperative during the investigation.


	11. Gray's Computer

Nancy left the security lab. She needed to figure out a way to get rid of Gray. That way, she could use the security computers and watch the two video files that she had numbers for.

Nancy wandered over to the other side of the building, where a security panel was located.

"Oooo! What does _this_ button do?" Nancy asked, pushing the big red button.

The security light started flashing. Gray burst out of the security room and ran to the laboratory. Since he was kind of heavyset, he didn't run very quickly. This meant Nancy had plenty of time to snoop before Gray returned.

"I'm sure there won't be any negative repercussions for setting off a false alarm," Nancy said to herself. She casually strolled into the security offices and turned on Gray's computer. It had four icons.

Nancy clicked on the security footage icon and typed in the video file numbers. The first video file was footage from the night of Niko's death. It showed Niko walking into the laboratory alone. Moments later, a bright light flashed, which Nancy presumed was from Niko's electrocution. The video ended there. Nancy squinted suspiciously. Why didn't the video show the murderer entering and leaving the lab's control room? Maybe the video was tampered with.

Nancy typed in the other video number. The video showed Ryan breaking into the laboratory, without using a key card. Nancy was extremely interested when she saw this. Not because Ryan looked guilty, but because Nancy wanted to break into the laboratory herself. Maybe Ryan could give her tips about illegal breaking and entering.

Of course, at this point in her life, Nancy had broken into more private, secure areas than most professional burglars. She was still slightly reticent about breaking into the lab, because her boss directly told her not to.

One of the icons on Gray's computer was some sort of log file. It was protected by a strange-looking puzzle.

"These symbols must represent binary code numbers," Nancy said out loud. "I need to recreate all of the numbers, using the colors on this wheel."

Nancy blinked.

"How did I know that?" she asked.

Nancy vaguely recognized the colored dots from the poster upstairs. After playing around with the circle, she managed to solve the puzzle, despite having no idea what she was doing.

This took her to a logbook. The log listed every time a keycard was used on the front doors of the lab. Every user ID was ten digits long, which seemed a bit excessive to Nancy, considering that the lab only had six employees, including Niko. Nancy scrolled through the logbook, until she reached the date of Niko's death.

A strange number appeared there, and next to it was the note SYSTEM OVERRIDE. This number appeared nowhere else in the logbook.

"I'll bet the murderer used that keycard to get into the lab," Nancy said, taking a mental note of it. If she could find that keycard, she would know the killer's identity.

The third icon on Gray's computer led to a picture of the Halloween party at the lab. All of the male employees were gathered together for a group photo. Victor was dressed like Nikola Tesla, Niko was dressed like a Power Ranger, Mason was dressed as a computer, and Gray wearing a pink mermaid costume.

Shuddering slightly, Nancy closed the picture.


End file.
